In conventional construction in North America concrete walls are normally produced by constructing form walls, pouring concrete into the space between the walls and, upon the setting of the concrete, removing the walls. Finishing materials are then added to the concrete walls as required.
Typically in residential construction, concrete basement walls will be constructed in the manner discussed above and wood framing will be constructed on top of the basement walls. Insulation will be inserted between the framing members and the wall finished inside and out as desired.
Clearly both parts of this construction are inefficient. With respect to the concrete basement walls, it is time-consuming and wasteful of materials to have to remove the form walls after the basement walls are poured. Furthermore, it is now common to insulate all basement walls, particularly in colder climates, and framing and insulation must be installed separately inside the walls.
The piecemeal construction which is inherent in the wood frame part of the structure is labour-intensive and expensive.
As a result, there have been ongoing efforts for many, many years to provide more modular types of wall construction from which efficiencies can be gained.
One such construction type is that with which the current invention is concerned.
For some 15 years a system has been in use particularly in Europe which combines a number of the operations normally associated with residential and other building construction to provide savings in materials, energy, etc. The system basically comprises the use of a foam insulating material to construct permanent concrete form walls. The form walls are constructed and the concrete poured and the form walls then left in place. The concrete wall so formed need not be confined to basement walls but may comprise all of a building's walls. No further insulation is necessary, and finishing materials may be applied to the interior and exterior of the wall as required.
Variations on this system have been proposed to achieve various improvements. All of the systems thus far proposed, while in many cases very useful, suffer from some or other disadvantages.
Against this background the present invention provides a building component for use in such a system which when integrated into a wall construction offers advantages over such prior art systems.